[matt_o]

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US?

To paraphrase Churchill: "The US hegemony is the worst hegemony for the world, except for all the other hegemonies."

The US retreating into isolationism would likely open up a vacuum eagerly filled in by less, well, liberal-minded states. The globalization you describe was pushed by the US-EU-(Japan/India/etc.) alliance, with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object. At least this is my current understanding.

[tim333]

And given the rival hegemony is the Chinese I think I prefer the US one. The CCP is not so hot on the democracy and human rights stuff.

[FpUser]

>"...with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object..."

Yup having big stick lets one tell the rest of the world to shut up and do what the're told to do. Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.

[Supermancho]

> Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.

Is that supposed to be a back-handed way of making a point? I don't understand what those things have to do with global stability.

Someone will be the de facto world police by force, now that the technology to utilize energy is so efficient. This situation has nothing to do with some sort of (USA-centered) Politically Correct philosophy. This situation is the eventuality of our time.

[FpUser]

>"...Someone will be the de facto world police by force..."

>"...This situation is the eventuality of our time."

This it what you say. I disagree.

[manigandham]

The laws of the world are enforced through violence. It's the ultimate power when it comes down to it, so yes, if you want maintain peace then you must also have the capacity to engage the most violence.

This is how peace is kept, regardless of how you feel about it. More importantly, power fills a vacuum, and the choices in the absence of the USA are not exactly better for the world.

[FpUser]

>"The laws of the world are enforced through violence. It's the ultimate power when it comes down to it"

And the sky is blue. Everyone including my cat knows it. Of course one with the biggest club gets to write the laws and to ignore those when it suits. Just stop pretending to be a knight in a shining armor. And being not as shitty as some others is not a reason to claim high moral ground.

[manigandham]

I believe America is the best country in the world with the strongest ideals. American is not only not as bad as others, it's also better.

You're free to believe something else of course, but then again most people have no perspective or experience of the suffering and violence in the world while they throw out these casual statements about how terrible America is.

[FpUser]

America has many things I admire. And yes it is better than many countries. And some countries are better than the US. The US had also done a lot of awful things to other countries and killed/maimed/made destitute/etc way too many people. I do not see what is so casual about this.

[zebrafish]

That’s correct. This was the only way for the world to pay for WWII and for the US to stem the tide of communism and Stalin’s Russia. Now that the Cold War is over, the US middle class isn’t sure it wants to foot the bill for maintaining this system that no longer seems to provide it much benefit and, in fact, has seemed to harm it. I think the world will see a decent amount of chaos as the US pulls back from protecting global trade routes. Unless all of the other countries of the world want to agree to a global socialistic society, I think the US will likely focus on building back its manufacturing base, opening and maintaining markets for those goods to flow to, reducing the Medicare and Social Security overhead so that this isolationist system can actually survive, and then politics will be focused on traditional values vs progressive ideas. Of course the internet will make this conversation much messier than it used to be in the pre-WWII days.

I’m interested to see how the shifting demographics affect this conversation. The three biggest things that shaped history are demographics, geography, and information flow. Two of these three are going to be significantly different since the last time the US moved towards isolationism.